I Who Have Never Known Men

by Jacqueline Harpman

I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering and that I was human after all.

I want to know everything there is to know. Not because it’s any use, but purely for the pleasure of knowing,

I tell myself that what I’d felt for her, the trust that slowly built up, the constant preference for her company and the joy each time I was reunited with her after an expedition were probably what the women called love.

I read and reread the book. I acquired a perfectly useless knowledge, but I enjoyed it.